Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff

Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz

Abstract

For over a hundred years, many have envisioned a cashless society, whether utopian or dystopian. Now, in an era of mobile money and Bitcoin, it seems that cashlessness might not be far off. In recent years, there has been a flurry of payment innovation. Many of these new technologies offer a dream of money as pure information: seamless andinstantaneous. But instead of becoming dematerialized, new money technologies rely on as much, if not more, stuff than cash ever did. This book investigates the material of money past, present, and future. It is a collection of essays by scholars across field ... More

For over a hundred years, many have envisioned a cashless society, whether utopian or dystopian. Now, in an era of mobile money and Bitcoin, it seems that cashlessness might not be far off. In recent years, there has been a flurry of payment innovation. Many of these new technologies offer a dream of money as pure information: seamless andinstantaneous. But instead of becoming dematerialized, new money technologies rely on as much, if not more, stuff than cash ever did. This book investigates the material of money past, present, and future. It is a collection of essays by scholars across fields, including anthropology, archaeology, media, technology, history, as well as journalists and industry professionals. Each essay focuses on one transactional object, including cash, checks, cards, and cryptocurrencies. Some of these items are valuable (such as bits of silver traded by libertarians), some are obsolete (such as first generation ATMs), and some are trash (such as receipts carefully collected in a cigar box). By attending to the stuff of money, these scholars investigate questions of value, authority, community, identity, and materiality.Contributors: Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, Maria Bezaitis, Finn Brunton, Lynn H. Gamble, David Graeber, Jane I. Guyer, Keith Hart, Sarah Jeong, Alexandra Lippman, Julien Mailland, Scott Mainwaring, Bill Baurer, Taylor C. Nelms, Rachel O’Dwyer, Michael Palm, Lisa Servon, David L. Stearns, Bruce Sterling, Lana Swartz, Whitney Anne Trettien, Gary Urton

Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo

Keith Hart

Michael Palm

Rachel O’Dwyer

Finn Brunton

End Matter

PRINTED FROM MIT PRESS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.mitpress.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright The MIT Press, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MITSO for personal use.date: 07 June 2020